Washington, DC — In a surprise result, Ecuadorians have said “No” to all four questions included in the referendum sponsored by President Noboa. Aside from rejecting Question B, on cutting public funding for political parties and Question C, on the slashing of the number of members of the National Assembly, Ecuadorians also voted against Question A, on the reintroduction of foreign military bases on Ecuadorean soil, and Question D, on the convening of an assembly to draft a new constitution. In doing so, Ecuadorians have opted to maintain the progressive constitution of 2008.

According to preliminary results from the National Electoral Council, 60,29 percent voted “No” on Question A and 61,44 percent on Question D, blocking Noboa’s bid to reaffirm the long-standing national prohibition on foreign military presence and to draft a new constitution.

Ecuador’s 2008 Constitution is widely known for forbidding investor-state arbitration in international treaties, for enshrining the rights of nature, for strong labor protections, and for giving priority to state-owned enterprises in the management of natural resources and strategic sectors. 

Noboa attempted to eliminate several of these provisions through a referendum in April 2024 but failed to secure the voters’ approval. With Question D, he sought to try again — and go even further — by proposing a rewrite of the Constitution that many feared would benefit Ecuador’s elite at the expense of the country’s working class, Indigenous communities, and the environment. Voters recognized the importance and value of the expansive rights enshrined in the 2008 Constitution and rejected Noboa’s fear-mongering claims that the current framework enables crime and hinders economic growth.

Ecuadorian voters also delivered a clear message by rejecting President Noboa’s flagship constitutional reform proposal to allow the establishment of foreign military bases on Ecuadorian soil. 

The outcome represents a sharp rebuke to the president’s management of the most salient issue for voters: Ecuador’s spiraling violence and rising insecurity. With 2025 set to be the most violent year ever recorded and a homicide rate set to exceed 50 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, Noboa has failed to deliver concrete results in his “internal war” on crime.

The proposed reform to bring back foreign — particularly US — military bases has been at the center of Noboa’s militarized strategy to address Ecuador’s spiraling security crisis. Last week, an International Crisis Group report criticized Noboa’s security policies as having failed to yield positive results and as being unlikely to succeed in the foreseeable future, claiming “the crackdown has done little to undermine drug trafficking and seemingly fostered a spate of human rights abuses.” Several human rights organizations have also denounced the sharp rise in torture, extrajudicial killings, and disappearances at the hands of the security forces.

Moreover, by inviting direct US military involvement and permanent presence in military bases  — framed as a partnership to combat drug trafficking and organized crime — Noboa has tied the country’s safety and sovereignty to Washington’s regional ambitions. Today’s “No” vote therefore underscores widespread public unease with that approach and reflects the Ecuadorian people’s skepticism toward the government’s heavy reliance on the Trump administration’s support. More generally, this vote raises questions about the effects and popularity of the last few years of security rapprochement and cooperation between Ecuador and the United States, which include, among other agreements, a Statute of Forces Agreement signed in 2023 that enables the presence of — and grants immunity to — US forces in Ecuador.

Citizen groups strongly campaigned against a US military presence in the Galápagos Islands. Noboa has authorized US warships and airplanes and immunity to US military personnel in the islands since December 2024.   

The “No” vote also signals a broader assertion of Ecuadorian sovereignty amid a growing US military footprint in Latin America and the Caribbean. It should not go unnoticed that at the same time that the US is embarking on its largest military buildup in the Western Hemisphere in decades, officially to combat drug traffickers, Ecuadorian voters have chosen to distance their nation from the intensifying militarization of the so-called War on Drugs — a campaign that, across the region, has generated human rights violations, civilian casualties, and little success in curbing narcotrafficking. In rejecting the base proposal, voters have reaffirmed Ecuador’s commitment to independence, peace, and regional cooperation grounded in civilian, not military, solutions.

The “No” vote on the reintroduction of foreign military bases reveals a deep voter dissatisfaction with the government’s security policies and doubt on President Noboa’s broader security and foreign policy agenda. It is, to date, the Noboa government’s biggest electoral defeat.